Cashtown grinds out doubleheader sweep of Brushtown

Cashtown's South Penn doubleheader at Brushtown on Saturday was, at times, akin to crawling on a barbed-wire fence.

Even so, Cashtown swept the Bulldogs by 2-1 and 10-5 scores to push its doubleheader record to 13-5, and overall record to 18-5.

"That was about the toughest doubleheader we've had all year," Cashtown manager Matt Rebert said. "(Brushtown) is a good young team and they came here today to win two games."

The Pirates trailed all throughout the opener before mounting a two-out, two-strike rally in the seventh to make starter Chase King a winner.

After racing out to a 6-1 lead in game two, Cashtown watched as two-time South Penn Most Outstanding Pitcher Brendan Reinert struggled to finish the fifth.

The Bulldogs nearly tied it in the fifth before Casey Kline came on in relief and shut the door.

"Brendan's pitch count started to get up there," Rebert said. "Brushtown was mounting a bit of an offensive attack, so it was good for Casey to come in and provide a change of pace. We got a little bit of luck in the first game, though, but the key was Chase keeping his composure."

King pitched a three-hitter, but Cody Smith's first-inning RBI single stood up as the game's only run until the seventh inning.

"I didn't want to give up on (the offense)," King said. "Everything I was doing felt good, and I knew they would score me a couple of runs.

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Brushtown starter Cory Smith pitched a shutout into the seventh, and was one strike away from closing the game out, but Ryan Reinert kept the game alive with a single on an elevated 0-2 fastball.

"We were trying to get the fastball a little lower," Brushtown catcher-manager Derick Groft said. "The thing is, in this league, it's hard to know how to pitch these guys. They are all good hitters."

Eric Ketterman poked a single to right field to tie the game at one, and then Pirates cleanup hitter Syril Kress came to the plate.

Kress popped up the first pitch he saw, but it fell harmlessly along the foul line as neither Smith nor Groft located the ball in the air.

Kress skied the next pitch to short left-center, and it fell in, allowing Reinert to score the go-ahead run.

"I caught a break there," Kress said. "That was just me being out in front. I need to let the ball get deeper."

Kress didn't need a break in his fourth inning at-bat in game two.

After Darren McGlaughlin put Cashtown up 2-1 with a two-RBI single, Kress drove the 1-0 pitch over the pavilion beyond the left-field wall for a three-run homer.

Chase King smacked an RBI single later in the inning to make it 6-1.

Brushtown began the long climb back in the bottom of the fourth, when an RBI single by Jordon Mattias and a bases-loaded walk to Logan Howell brought the score to 6-3.

Brushtown still had the bases loaded when Reinert recorded a strikeout to end the inning.

Cooper Ayres cracked a two-run single to make it 6-5, and later in the inning, Nick Tipton sacrificed the tying and go-ahead runs into scoring position with one out.

Kline then struck out Brett Smith on a ball in the dirt. As catcher Brendan Roser threw to first to complete the second out, Ayres broke for home, but Ketterman's relay throw beat him to the dish.